


An Unexpected Birthday

by meimentomori



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Comfort/Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay Keith (Voltron), Happy Birthday Lance (Voltron), Homesickness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 18:51:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15467766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meimentomori/pseuds/meimentomori
Summary: "Would you sit up if I told you that it was your birthday?"Or in which Lance's birthday surprises him in more ways than one.





	An Unexpected Birthday

Lance wished that there was someone who needed him for anything.

Shiro and Coran had decided to take the Black Lion out to stock up on some extra supplies at a nearby swap moon. With their leader by the Altean’s side, hopefully they would run into less trouble with both security and pirates as they bought whatever needed restocking. Pidge and Hunk were off programming together, as they’d been nonstop for the seeming weeks that’d past since Lotor took their side. Allura was with the prince in question right now, who seemed to always decide that the princess was the perfect candidate for aiding him with his projects. Lance couldn’t convince any of them to let him tag along or shift their plans so that he wouldn’t be left alone. Which explained why he was lying over the edge of the couch, letting his hair dangle against the floor, with nobody but himself to talk to.

A thought crossed his mind that made his eyes light up, only to come to the sudden realization that snuffed the light out of them with its rude awakening. Keith wouldn’t talk to him, as much as Lance wanted him to. Not because he would reject him, but because the former red paladin left for the Blade whoever knows how long ago. And if there was one thing that his replacement knew more than anything, it was that they operated on a schedule tighter than the security guarding Galra prisoners. Every call that they made to the castle was scheduled with Allura, who made sure that at least someone was present when said time rolled around (usually Shiro, sometimes Coran). It wasn’t often that there was something else that occupied her, making her unable to greet Kolivan and Keith, to get updates on their progress.

Lance found himself sighing as he let himself dangle over the edge further, so that the top of his head met the hard floor with a bit of a thump. Without anyone to distract him, he found his mind wandering back to his family. Lance knew that they couldn’t have been out in space for any longer than a year. But to him, anytime away from his family felt like an eternity. It’d been hard enough back at the Garrison, knowing that the room he returned to at the end of the day wouldn’t be his. That the smell of his mom’s cooking wouldn’t waft through the house, nor would the shouts of his brothers in the living room, arguing over whose turn it was to play on the PS3, hardly ever coming to an agreement peacefully. There were only three times of the year that Lance looked forward to back then: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and summer vacation.

Now he had nothing to look forward to, aside from the return of Keith that seemed like it would never come.

Pidge’s shoes appeared in front of him without warning, white tips turned cream from weeks of wear and tear. “Is this your new ‘moping around about the princess’ position or are you trying to dust the floor with your hair?” 

“Neither.” Lance said bitterly, pouting as he turned his head away from her. “I finished training for the day and there was nothing to do so I came here and this happened.”

“Would you sit up if I told you it was your birthday?”

The way she asked it was so nonchalant, that it took Lance a second to process what she’d just said. 

All that he knew was that it was sometime in May that they were thrust into this intergalactic war without warning. Midway through it, around the time that they had their monthly tests to assess how they were progressing throughout their lessons. The simulation they’d failed that day had been one that would’ve knocked them down a level or two, if they’d stayed in their rooms that night. It wasn’t exactly that Lance regretted not listening to Hunk and running back inside at the sound of the alarms, warning them of the danger that was hurtling towards Earth. The mission they were on now was far more important than any of the ones that the Garrison might’ve sent them on as they grew up and improved on their teamwork. The regret that Lance had was not being able to send even a text to his parents to let them know that no matter what story they would tell him, he was okay.

That they wouldn’t have to celebrate his birthday, believing that their own son was either dead or never coming back home.

“There’s no way that you could know that for sure, Pidge.” He said, refusing to accept her words without further proof. Believing that his birthday had already passed or he would never know the day it would come was far easier. “Unless you’ve been obsessively tracking the time since we got here.”

Pidge leaned down in front of him, lips curled into a devilish grin. 

She was holding a notebook open with her right hand, so that Lance could see all of the tally marks and Altean-to-Earth time conversions that she’d come up with. The next page she flipped to had mini calendar pages, laid out neatly in rows. The days that had passed since their departure from Earth had neat, red x’s covering them. It didn’t take him long to see where they ended, right before his birthday. July 28th. He looked from the pages to her, trying to decipher any sort of insincerity in her smile. Pidge closed the book as soon as she noticed this, grabbing his arms and pulling him back up to sit on the couch. She then pulled a box out of her pocket, resting it on his leg. It reminded Lance of the one that his father had given his mother one anniversary of theirs, with a necklace made of diamonds lying neatly inside. 

He held it for a moment, admiring the deep blue of the ribbon that was tied in a bow around it, before frowning. “I can’t take this.” He tried to give the box back to her, but she pushed it away. “I didn’t even get you anything for your birthday back at the Garrison!”

“That was a fake birthday I put down on the forms so Iverson wouldn’t find out who I actually was.” Pidge rolled her eyes. “My real one’s April third so it didn’t mean much to me anyways.”

Lance began untying the ribbon, earning himself a delighted gasp from Pidge. He took his time, admiring the way that the satin shined in the light. How had she even managed to get Allura to find her something like this? He could feel the homesickness creeping in on him, building up in his heart like a weight of lead. Nearly every present that his family gave him, no matter the occasion, was decorated in some shade of blue. Wrapping paper that shined like the surface of the ocean, gift tags that looked like they’d been dipped into the color of the sky. It was the paladin’s favorite color, after all. He lifted the top of the box off as soon as he was able to toss the ribbon to the ground. Inside was a watch, with a deep blue strap and all. Not one that kept track of time with hands, but with blocky electronic numbers.

“I figured you’d want to keep track of time. You know, so you’d have something to remind you of home.” Pidge said, taking it out of the box to show him all of its features. It reminded him of one of those Apple Watches that he’d thought were pretentious back home, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. “There’s a calendar, timer, all that cool stuff.”

“How’d you get it synched up to the time on Earth?” Lance asked after she’d handed it back to him. He clasped it around his wrist, with a bit of difficulty. He nodded approvingly as he noticed how little room there was between the bracelet bit and his wrist. “You travel back there without us or something?”

“My laptop.” She said matter of factly. “Space does a lot of things to technology but it doesn’t magically change the time system in which it measures at.”

Lance raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Then why the notebook?”

“Hunk decided to point that fact out to me after I’d done all of the math. Said it would come in handy to know Altean time versus Earth time.”

Lance took a few seconds to scroll through its features himself, though he wasn’t really paying attention to them. What he was thinking about was how much time that Pidge must’ve put into creating something like this just for him, keeping him in mind every minute that she worked on it. Their friendship had been a bit rocky lately, in light of how much time Lance spent missing Keith and ranting about how much he didn’t trust Lotor. For today to be any different than the constant teasing he was used to by now meant something that he wouldn’t be able to explain to Pidge without sounding cheesy. She might not have been the most supportive out of all of the paladins, nor was she the most gentle, but she had her own ways of showing her affection to the others every once in a while.

“Thanks, Pidge.” Lance looked up at her. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to hold himself back from saying more. “I really appreciate this. Especially since it’s the only birthday gift I’m gonna be getting for a while.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that.” Pidge said, standing up to leave. “I’m sure you’ve got a few surprises left in store.”

Lance opened his mouth to ask her what she’d meant but she was already out of the room.

It was a blessing that she’d left when she did because not even a few seconds later, a loud grumble erupted from his stomach. So loud, in face, that he’d shushed it so that if anyone was returning they wouldn’t be able to hear it. Lance guessed that it was already a lot later than he’d thought. That’d been happening to him more often lately. He’d lose himself in his thoughts for a while and forget that his body needed tending to, no matter how little he cared to satisfy its needs. Just the other day he’d almost collapsed during training because he’d overworked himself too much, only saved by Shiro coming in, telling him that he’d done more than enough. He’d stopped him with a hand on his shoulder to ask if there was anything wrong. If there was anything that he could do to help Lance, even if it was as simple as listening. 

He’d shaken his head, despite having the insecurities that he’d been waiting to share with Shiro on the tip of his tongue.

Lance knew that the black paladin would understand the more than anyone. Especially with all that he’d gone through back at the Garrison, the stories that were shared amongst his fellow cadets in hushed whispers. There was no point in regretting it now, since he couldn’t go and find Shiro to tell him even if he wanted to. Instead, Lance hoisted himself up off of the couch and made his way to the dining room. He still wasn’t quite used to the silence that’d been seeming to fall over the castle more and more frequently. It was jarring from the noise that he was always used to surrounding him. Laser guns and lions roaring aside, he’d grown up in a household where silence meant that he was completely alone. That there was no one there to comfort him when he needed it, lift him up when he was on the verge of falling.

At least with real family, they came looking for you when you shut them out.

There was something different from their usual meals of various space foods that Hunk prepared for them waiting for Lance that day. Sitting on a plate at the head of the table was a slice of cake. Chocolate with chocolate frosting it looked like, from where Lance was standing. He rushed into the chair sitting behind it and dug in, appreciating every bite. It reminded him exactly of the cakes that his mother made him each year back on Earth for his birthday. Somehow, with whatever ingredients he could find, Hunk had managed to make one of the best chocolate cakes Lance had ever had. It had the perfect ratio of frosting to cake, wasn’t dry in the slightest, and even had chunks of chocolate sprinkled throughout the cake. He finished it in what seemed like five bites, but he relished every one of them as the flavor lingered on his tongue. 

It was then that he finally noticed the envelope that Hunk had placed beside this cake. His name was scrawled on it in neat yet wavy handwriting, a signature of his that Lance had grown to appreciate over their time at the Garrison. Mostly through what seemed to be endless nights of copying his notes after class, when their dorm rooms were dark and he had nothing but a flashlight to aid him in his endeavors. Lance wiped his hands off a napkin and opened it up. The card itself wasn’t flashy or anything. It was more so a letter written on what looked like was a piece of notebook paper. He unfolded it to be greeted with one of the most heartfelt messages Lance had ever received on his birthday. He read it once and smiled. Twice and he could feel the familiar pangs of loneliness in his chest. The third time was the one that did it, tears appearing in the corners of his eyes before he could wipe them away.

“Your family was always proud of you.” Was what had caught Lance’s attention that time around. “Whenever I answered your phone when you couldn’t get to it, they’d have nothing but praise waiting for me on the other end of the line. Your brothers seem to think that going to the Garrison is like something out of a comic book. They look up to you like you’re their hero. And you sure are making them proud by being one.”

Lance reached for his napkin again to wipe his eyes, realizing too late that there were crumbs from his cake tucked within it. They didn’t do too much damage to anything. What did do damage were those words. Lance had always hoped that he was. He thought about their excitable chatter nearly every day that passed when he failed a simulation or had to retake a test. There’d even been times when his teachers had threatened to call home unless he could get his act together. He always did, just barely and with much needed assistance from Hunk and Pidge. His greatest motivation to be the best at the end of the day was the pride of his brothers. It might not have been the greatest idea to pretend to be the best at everything but faking himself out had caused him to improve tenfold.

There were times that this confidence and cockiness wavered, however. Days when he shut everyone else out in fear of letting them see the less confident side of himself. Keith had been the first person that he decided to let in on it before he abandoned Lance. Thinking that in his head, he knew it sounded harsh, and entirely wrong through an outsiders point of view, but that was the only way he could think to describe the mixture of emotions that raced through his mind whenever he thought back to when Keith began to distance himself out of nowhere. Lance would try to reach out for him in any way that he could, reign him back in when he started to spiral out of control. It’d worked for a while, giving Shiro enough time to recover and start to train Keith to replace him officially.

That was what had been his breaking point.

Lance didn’t know the full story of who Shiro was to Keith or why the two of them seemed closer than blood related brothers were. What he’d gathered was that Keith was an orphan. His father had died on duty as a firefighter when he was no older than ten years old and he was shipped off to an orphanage before he had time to heal. Lance didn’t know why but he had a feeling that Shiro had practically raised him, being the only reason why he didn’t get kicked out of the Garrison sooner than he had. He might’ve been the one person keeping Keith from going over the edge. But, in Lance’s eyes, he was gone the moment that their original leader had returned. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that replacing Shiro was out of the question, so he’d done the second best thing. Left and forced him to reunite with the black lion.

Without thinking about the bit of Lance that he’d taken with him, a part that couldn’t be replaced.

He got up from the table and shoved the letter into his pocket, putting his plate into the kitchen and his napkin into the trash before heading to the castle’s control room. It would be relaxing for him to sit in front of the windows that opened so wide, it looked like you could step out into the stars if you wanted to. Lance forgot how beautiful they were when he saw them sitting still. Zooming past them in his lion was one thing when he was in danger but being able to stare at them, to make up constellations of his own was an sensation that seemed like it would never get old to Lance. Even if they weren’t the same stars he saw in the night sky back on Earth, he could trick himself into believing that they were. That his family wasn’t light years away, that he could return to them whenever he felt like it.

Seemed like someone had beaten him to getting to the control room first, though.

“Lance!” The princess greeted him, turning away from whatever it was she’d been looking at on her screen. To Lance, it seemed a bit too quick. Like there’d been something on that hologram she’d been hiding. “Happy birthday!”

“Pidge tell you, too?”

Allura nodded excitedly. “She told everyone on the team, no matter where they were.”

“Thanks, by the way.” Lance chuckled awkwardly. “But do you even know what birthdays are?”

“Pidge explained them fairly well, plus we used to have celebrations for similar purposes back on Altean every year. I apologize for not being able to be here earlier.” Allura said, bowing her head slightly out of shame. “But I promise I’ll make it up to you. Anything you want and I’ll see to it that Coran finds it for you.”

“Same with me.” Shiro chimed in as he strolled into the control room, with the princess’s assistant hot on his trail. “As long as Allura gives me permission to borrow him, of course. Think of it as a joint gift from the both of us.”

“Hey!” Coran objected, clearly sick of not being taken seriously by any of them. “If I have to go and buy it, then I get the most ownership over it!”

“You don’t have to.” Lance mumbled, shyly looking down at his feet as he let his hair dangle in front of his face.

Allura hopped down from the castle’s controls, frowning at the sight of his long face. “Do you not have anything that you want?”

“It’s not that…” Lance’s voice trailed off.

He couldn’t admit it outloud. At least, not under these circumstances. If it were just one of them and it were somewhere private, maybe he could muster up enough courage to ask for it. Even if Lance asked to see him, there was no guarantee that he’d be able to stop back home. Or that the Blade would even pick up their calls. Besides, having Keith there didn’t seem like it was a gift that he could ask for. A gift in their eyes was something that Lance could keep to look back on and remember them by. So that he’d never forget this day in the years to come, whether he wanted to or not. Keith wouldn’t be with Lance forever, as much as he wanted him to be. There would come a day where he would wake up in his bed back home and expect to meet his fellow paladin’s joking voice, anxiously awaiting the day’s adventure to come.

It was all that he could ask for to spend as much time with him as he could, before they inevitably went their separate ways back on Earth.

Allura furrowed her eyebrows in concern as Shiro came up behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not something we can get you, is it?”

“Not easily.” Lance admitted. He wished that he could retreat back into his room, now that they were pressuring him like this. When his emotions ran high, the last thing that he needed was for anyone to press him further. “You know what? Why don’t I just go back to my room and think on it for a while and get back to you later?”

“You don’t have to be afraid to tell us.” Shiro’s voice dropped to a gentler tone, reminding Lance of his father back home. “We don’t judge you, right Allura?”

The princess drew a cross over the center of her chest with her finger. “Cross my heart.”

“All that I want is for Keith to come back, alright?” Lance stepped away from Shiro, his hand falling to his side again. “But there’s not a chance in the universe that that’s happening so if I could call the Blade later and talk to him, that would be more than enough of a present. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Lance turned and began walking off to his room. “My workout was tiring today. Wake me up if you need anything.”

Lance didn’t even bother to shut the door behind him once he got to his room.

In the midst of running towards it, he came to an unexpected realization that he hadn’t been ready to accept. There was a part of him that had probably known about it all along. The signs that he refused to acknowledge when they were right under his nose, now coming to him rapidly with crystal clarity. Everything had been set to fall into place perfectly between the two of them before he’d left. Lance would’ve realized the way that his feelings leaned either way, but with Keith there, he would’ve been able to act on them much sooner. Instead, all that Lance had were sleepless nights and empty arms that he longed to fill, without knowing who or what belonged inside of them. 

“Keith?” Lance’s voice was raw and weak, barely louder than a whisper. “What’re you doing here?”

“Surprise.” Keith responded even softer, arms wide open, just waiting to wrap around him.

Lance ran into them without a second’s hesitation.

These were the arms that he was meant to be in. The body that he’d longed to pull against him in the middle of the night when he was lonely, the hair that he’d wanted to nuzzle his nose into and take in both its softness and scent. It didn’t matter in that moment if this present wouldn’t last forever, if this surprise would leave him with another piece of his heart taken back to the Blade with Keith. For every heartbreak, there’s a heart filled. And Lance’s couldn’t have been fuller at that moment. He looked up at his teammate with his eyes looking like they were dripping with seawater. It wasn’t just Keith’s presence that he’d come to gift the paladin on his special day. He inched in closer, not knowing if Lance would pick up on his plan that he hoped would be enough to make him smile. Lance knew it like it was the back of his hand, leaning in closer until the space between their lips was nonexistent.

This was what a birthday present looked like, something that would never leave someone’s memory yet never fail to be special with every year they looked back on it.

“Happy birthday, Lance.” Keith said as soon as their lips had parted, cheeks flushed and heart racing. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get you much else.”

Lance shushed him with a finger to his lips. “This is more than enough.”

“I missed you.” Keith smiled sheepishly, sitting down on Lance’s mattress. “I don’t know what came over me when I decided to leave that day but I couldn’t bare to see you lose your spot on the team and-”

“You left because of me?” Lance asked, the awe in his voice that of someone who’d woken up after going unconscious, only to realize that they had no idea who they were anymore. He took a seat down next to Keith, no longer bothering to mind the space between them.

“Yeah.” Keith admitted, running his fingers through his mullet. “I thought it’d make you happier if I were the one who stepped down from the team instead of you. Guess I was wrong.”

Lance chuckled. “You couldn’t be even more clueless if you tried but, thank you for that.”

“You’re not mad?”

“Not at all.” Lance took a hold of his hand, interlacing their fingers. “But there’s one thing that I can’t have you forgetting.”

Keith raised an eyebrow in confusion. “What?”

“On your birthday, I get to visit you at the Blade.” Lance grinned. “You know, be your backup for the day! Make your special day that much easier.”

“But I didn’t even get to tell you what your present is yet.” Keith smirked in return. 

“What?” Lance’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“I’m home for good starting today.” Keith replied. “So now I’ll always have your back.”

Lance couldn’t say anything, instead he decided to tackle him down onto his bed so that they could lie there together. His eighteenth might’ve been nothing like the birthdays he celebrated back home. There was no family, crowding around a cake lit with loads of candles, with his mom videotaping him as he blew out the candles on yet another year of his life. There were no presents that he was used to, gift cards, clothes, anything generic that they could get him so that they’d be in the clear for then. What this birthday had give him was something much more important than that. It reminded Lance where he came from and what gave him the motivation to keep going. That he wasn’t alone, even when he seemed like nobody was there for him to talk to or laugh with or keep him company in his times of need. No, what this birthday had given him was something irreplaceable.

Love, in every form of the word.

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday to my baby boy lance!! i hope he has a wonderful day and that we all appreciate him for the talented sharpshooter he is! not to mention courageous, selfless, and overall absolutely amazing. we couldn't ask for a better paladin to be flying red right now <3
> 
> (this fic was set around season five or so, pre-krolia, so enjoy!)


End file.
